Loveland "Liner Notes"

"Loveland" is a concept album in the sense that there is an intentional theme that all of the songs express in one way or another. 

   This came about when I realized that all the tracks are about some aspect of romantic love, from the sublime to the bittersweet. Further, these songs have a point of view that's a bit world weary and down to earth, not the intoxication of a crush or immature love, but more the emotions you feel after some of the experiences we all have looking for that connection. 

   That abstract concept is the theme of "Prelude", the track that sets the mood for the entire album. It's an aural flight through the void towards Loveland, One doesn't quite complete the trip. Instead it pauses at "Storm". "Storm" was first written over 20 years ago, inspired by a driving bass line, and has had several sets of lyrics as it evolved. It's one of those songs that never quite felt finished and now it's clear that it needed more time to find its full meaning.  As much as any other song in "Loveland" it expresses the longing and desire for an overpowering experience; of love, spiritual and complete. The message of "Storm" is that longing to open oneself to infinite possibilities and be lifted up to find "the power of eternal love" through the turmoil of life. "If Everybody Loved" is also an older song that has gone through several iterations. Over the years it has become a song I always play when I perform and in that sense my theme song. I first recorded it as an acoustic folk song, then redid it as country, adding drums and electric guitar. At that point I decided to take it one step farther and enlisted Chris Bauer to add some pedal steel licks. It's followed by the mildly suggestive "Rockin' U",  a track that takes me back to when I first heard a live rock band. The Fabulous Wailers were a popular regional act and they did a show at our local armory. I could hear the rumble of the bass from a block away, and I'll never forget the blast of sound that hit us when we walked in. "Rockin' U" is my homage to that experience. Next up is "Hold Me", that's about how our loved ones give us the strength to get through the struggles and disappointments of daily life. "Stowaway" was an unfinished song with a hook lyric and little else for a long time. It wasn't until I left Nashville and was in Oregon that the inspiration for the verses broke through a writer's block that also led to the next songs, "No Reason" and "Dead End Road", which are the newest in this collection.  These tracks are highlighted by the contributions of Paul Sandberg on saxophone and Nicole Dahl and Tiffany Hilliker singing backup.

 

 “No Reason” is a slightly different take on the age old dilemma of the newly single person finding the courage to take a chance on something new. This track features my friend and singing partner Nicole Dahl.

 

“Dead End Road”

True story? I ain’t sayin’. On my last record I had “Trouble Road” which paints a picture of the darker side of town, where people are up to no good, and this song is a sequel. It’s also in the vein of “Runnin’ Like Me” from the “Limited Edition” record, where life is reduced to a man, a fast car, and a long road with no certain destination. I’m joined by Nicole who plays the role of the femme fatale in the story.

   Perhaps the most meaningful song for me is "Looking Back",  which is a reminiscence of first love and how time changes our feelings about those left behind. It's also produced with a ear toward what I think of as classic production with a big sound and a soaring pedal steel solo by Chris. "Loveland" is the track that reflects the overall theme and is a bit different in style for me, with a R&B riff propelling the track as it builds to a finale with a driving sax solo from Paul. On a more abstract level, "Loveland" is a place, the destination of your journey, one that doesn't exist in physical space, but in another dimension beyond our senses. "Come along, someone is waiting for you" is the call that promises companionship for that journey. "Loveland" may be at the center of the Universe, or deep inside our souls. We may never reach it, or we may have been there all along. The last song, “Precious Days” is purposefully simple, just vocal and guitar. I wanted to end with something that reveals how a song begins, before making decisions about how to produce a recording and this song really lends itself to this approach.

   

   Each of these tracks also reflects my interpretation of the Americana genre. I see it as music rooted in the tradition of folk music, which has at the core a simple structure and straightforward message. In this way the songs can stand alone as a solo acoustic performance, and in fact that's where each of them began, but from there they branch out and embrace several different genres and eras as well. For instance, "Rockn' U" has a 50's rockabilly feel, and "No Reason" and "Dead End Road" gives a nod to roadhouse blues rock. "Loveland" is the most contemporary track structurally, it even flirts with hip hop a little, but even as it does I hear 80s pop and r&b too. It wasn't a necessarily conscious choice on my part but I do hear each track in the context of a particular time and the influence that period had on my music, including my time in Nashville immersed in country music. 

The image for "Loveland" reflects the idea of a journey and was taken on a road trip through the high desert in the Pacific Northwest near where I spent my childhood. 

Credits:

"Loveland" is a self produced and recorded project except for the following stellar contributions:

Background 

and Duet vocals:    Nicole Dahl (Storm, No Reason, Dead End Road)

                      Tiffany Hilliker (Stowaway)

                      Lindsay Millward (Hold Me, Looking Back")

                      Jamie White (Looking Back)

Pedal Steel :          Chris Bauer (If Everybody Loved, Looking Back)

Saxophone:           Paul Sandberg (Stowaway, Loveland)

 

Listening With Intention

My latest album "Loveland" is a "concept album".

Some records are simply collections of songs, but others are produced with the intention to be listened to as a whole complete experience.

One of the first ones was "Sgt. Pepper", and around the same time, "Pet Sounds" and "Dark Side of the Moon. Not only did these albums have songs that developed a particular theme, but they also were crafted with attention to how they sounded. 

Technology has changed how we listen. Radio had a lot of influence on modern pop music; for instance the emergence of the "single" and shorter songs with musical "hooks" to engage listeners. The first records were single songs and then in 1948 the LP was introduced. Forty years later the CD made it obsolete, and in 2001 iTunes, downloads, and streaming became the new radio. 

Now these days, and it's not a good or bad thing, the idea of an album is often more about packaging than concept. Playlists, an extension of the "mix tape", became a way listeners could arrange their music any way they pleased. Although vinyl has made a comeback, CDs are pretty much obsolete, most music is now strictly online.

What's this?

It also seems like that music has now become more of a soundtrack, just playing in the background while we do other things, while a movie or TV show may get our undivided attention for its entire time. We watch these shows because they tell a story and we want to follow it to the end. 

Music affects us in many ways, and I think of it as first eliciting pleasure though sound and rhythm, which is a the physical effect, and then by eliciting emotion, which for me is the primary challenge of songwriting, and where a certain magic can be found if one finds the perfect combination of lyrics, composition, and production.

So I would hope listeners will put on a good set of headphones and listen with intention. For one thing, all these tracks have nuance and detail that comes out best when listened with headphones, but also they allow you to focus without distraction. 

All these songs were inspired by personal experiences but I believe they have a universal message as well. "Loveland" is about a journey, and the concept is to travel along with each song and create your own narrative based on the feelings they evoke. I hope if you do you will enjoy the experience of listening to "Loveland" as much as I had creating it.

There are now dozens of online streaming services and "Loveland" will be distributed to all of them, including Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora and Amazon Music, in January.

2020!

A Challenging Year

     Back in February I was looking forward to a busy year. As I began my third season as a performing songwriter in the Rogue Valley I had already booked out dates through December and was hosting a monthly open mic and Songwriter "In The Round" events at Roxyann winery. On the eve of the March open mic I had the realization that we were facing a dangerous epidemic and the first inkling of concern. At that time I wasn't sure how serious the situation was going to be, so just to be prudent I decided to cancel the event for the month. Shortly the Governor closed the state, and after that I canceled everything I had booked for the rest of the year.

     As March progressed the full impact of the epidemic became a reality, and we observed a strict quarantine, and I mean we didn't go out at all, even having groceries delivered. Lockdown. We watched as Europe struggled through its wave of infections, then New York. We only had a handful of cases locally and that was somewhat comforting, but we still were very anxious about what was happening. As we head into the end of the year, the situation is worsening and all signs point to many more months of waiting for the epidemic to come to an end. It's been a test of our patience and resilience, but also offered opportunities for growth. 

     What I soon realized was that over the last three years performing and practicing had taken up all my energy to the detriment of developing new material. I had a continuing writer's block that began when we moved to Oregon. I just didn't seem to be motivated, I think mainly because I was now distant from Nashville and the competitive environment, but for other reasons as well, like the distraction of exploring a new place and meeting new people. Not only that, but rekindling being a live performer necessitated mastering a new song list and many hours of rehearsal to prepare for gigs. All of that was put aside and as the time passed I fell into a more reflective state. My creative process returned. Ideas started trickling in.

    Also, I started working on some unfinished recordings that were left over from my last album, "Home For Good" (available on Spotify). What I discovered was that after two years of gigging, my singing had gotten better, and some of the melodies that were eluding me were now within reach. My guitar playing had evolved as well, and I enjoyed applying improvements to these tracks. The result is "Loveland", 10 songs that I will be releasing soon.

     If it hadn't been for the epidemic I wouldn't have taken the time to work on this project, and that's kind of a mixed blessing; I'm really happy with the tracks, but wish the circumstances weren't so tragic. This is the paradox of life, when events beyond our control take over and we are compelled to make the changes needed to adapt.

     2020 has been a retreat, where we have been obliged to take a step back from all our busy lives and hopefully used the downtime to meditate on and evaluate our paths for ourselves and for our society in the future. 

Loved To Death

"Money, too, remains a problem. The parks have endured a history marked more by congressional indifference and occasional hostility than by generosity. A $12 billion backlog for maintenance and improvements awaits funding. Fewer permanent employees now work for the park service than in 2002, even as it administers more parks and deals with record numbers of visitors.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/opinion/sunday/are-we-loving-our-national-parks-to-death.html

This article was written two years ago and has facts about the park system and the issues I witnessed firsthand during my recent visit to Grand Teton National Park. 

We got up at 5 am with an hour’s drive from our overnight stay to the camp site we were hoping to get. We hit a traffic jam at the park entrance and I became apprehensive about a crush at the “first come first served” campground. Are all these people going for the "tents only" site we wanted? Should we have spent the night in the parking lot? My nervousness alternated with my awe at seeing the mountains towering above us lit by the sunrise.

    At our campground/trailhead, Jenny Lake, which is the most popular spot for camping and sightseeing, the parking lot held about 50 cars. By 9 am every day the lot filled and spilled out onto the highway entrance, with cars and RVs coming and going all day. Work was being done on the facility, which I assume was to enlarge it.

    

We went to the park to hike, and once one got past the trailheads the crowds did lessen, because the trails are steep and rocky. Even so there was a steady stream of people, speed hikers charging up the hill, families with small children, couples chattering in a variety of languages, and guided groups of teenagers. A short distance up the trail, usually past the first overlook, it thinned out and by the time we got up to a lake three miles in we were virtually alone. Along the way we passed side trails that were closed so they could recover, blocked with large rocks and tree branches and posted with “loved to death” signs.

My personal peeve: the bathroom at our campsite was gross. It’s managed by a private company and to their credit it was evident that staff was doing their best to keep it reasonably clean, but it was in disrepair with broken doors and a bare concrete floor. The fee was $30/night so the 50 sites at this campground generate about $50,000 a month. I wondered what impression international visitors were getting. It was amusing to see a sign in one restroom that showed an awareness that it’s just not U.S. citizens coming to see our natural wonders. 

At the heart of all this is a consideration of infrastructure politics.The current administration is cutting the budget when most agree that the funding is insufficient to maintain and upgrade the system as it exists. Moreover, allowing even more people into these fragile ecosystems increases the cost to keep them healthy. Personally, I would like to see “tent only” camping and a reduction of traffic by using shuttles for day visitors. RVs are another problem. How anyone can call it “camping” when they are pulling a house behind them is a mystery to me, but they now compromise the majority of those in the campgrounds and are a constant presence on the roads.

Publicly held natural resources are vulnerable to mismanagement and exploitation for personal and political gain. By all accounts this is what we are facing now. Officials from the cabinet on down and some legislators are of the mindset that “too much” is being withheld from development. At best they may hold the mistaken belief that making these lands available to drillers, loggers and miners will add needed revenue to the treasury. At worst we may be the victims of backroom dealing and corruption; it is difficult to know the facts, but the risk of permanent damage from overuse and uncontrolled development is a real and present danger.

So let’s take a moment to look at the current Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke.

(Note: The following is cut and paste from Wikipedia, New York Magazine, ThinkProgress and Vanity Fair articles)

He’s an ex-Navy Seal, from Montana, has businesses and property worth over a million dollars, impoverished by Trump cabinet standards, and has been a politician since 2009.

In 2013, Zinke hosted a radio show in which he engaged with and promoted fringe conspiratorial views, including birtherism (the myth that Barack Obama was not born in the United States). Zinke said on the radio show that he was not sure whether Obama was a foreign citizen and called on Obama to release his college transcripts. Later, in 2016, as a congressman, Zinke appeared on the radio show “Where's Obama's Birth Certificate”, known for its promotion of birther conspiracy theories

During his Senate confirmation hearing he stated:

“Climate is changing; man has had influence,” Zinke said, differing himself from Trump's position on climate change. “I don’t believe it’s a hoax…I believe we must be prudent.”

The former Montana congressman said he was "absolutely against the transfer or sale of public land."

He also said he would be open to reviewing and expanding oil drilling, stating:

“The president-elect has said, we want to be energy independent. As a former Navy SEAL, I think I have been to 63 countries in my lifetime. I can guarantee you it is better to produce energy domestically under reasonable regulation, than watch it be produced overseas with no regulation."

One of Zinke’s first acts after confirmation was to overturn a moratorium on new leases for coal mines on public land. He subsequently recommended slashing the size of several national monuments, including Bears Ears, in Utah, and Gold Butte, in Nevada, and lifting restrictions at others to allow more development. (In December, acting on these recommendations, President Donald Trump announced that he was cutting the area of the Bears Ears monument by more than three-quarters and shrinking the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument, also in Utah, by almost half.) Zinke has also proposed gutting a plan, years in the making, to save the endangered sage grouse; instead of protecting ten million acres in the West that had been set aside for the bird’s preservation, he’d like to see them given over to mining. And he’s moved to scrap Obama-era regulations that would have set more stringent standards for fracking on federal property.

Perhaps the most cynical thing they are doing is in regards to the National Parks Funding Bill (S.751 - National Park Service Legacy Act of 2017) which Zinke came out and supported after it was introduced in March of 2017 but has been sitting in committee since. All while the president’s budget proposes a drastic 16% to the Department of the Interior, which houses the National Park Service, and a cut of 7% to the park service itself. It’s been reported they are also proposing a hefty increase to admission fees.

“They’re determined to lease and develop every acre they possibly can, which will minimize the potential for conserving these landscapes in the future,” Jim Lyons, who was a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Interior Department during the Obama Administration, told the Washington Post. “They’re quite efficient, and they know exactly what they want to do.”

Despite the crush, our trip was great. We just had to look past the crowds the same way you do at a theme park, concert or mall and make the effort to go farther in where most of them feared to tread, bear spray at the ready. It's my hope that this one part of our shared experience was geared more towards a concern for long term conservation rather than unfettered use and development and I wonder if those farsighted patriots who first aspired to set aside these unique treasures would be approving of what has transpired. 

  

Coincidence?

I'm going to take a break from political commentary to share a story that raises, for me, some fascinating notions about coincidence and serendipity. Some believe there are no coincidences, which implies that there are unseen forces that guide us. 

It's related to religion, and a variety of superstitions that are part of western culture. I personally don't believe such things, and I had an experience recently that for me profoundly proves that out of randomness can come things that appear pre-ordained, and as such are more remarkable than a belief in supernatural guidance.

While in college a friend and I took a road trip and had a breakdown near a little town in eastern Oregon that necessitated an overnight stay. With some time to kill we walked around downtown, stopping in a antique store where I purchased an emblem from an old car for a dollar. I'm not sure why I was attracted to it, aside from a vague notion of using it as a decoration in my dorm room, something I never did. As it turned out I just hung on to it, something in the box of miscellaneous junk that everyone carries with them as they move from place to place.

Many years later, in 2008, when while going through "the box" I saw the emblem and got the idea to use it in a painting, to do a full size canvas of the car and attach the emblem as a mixed media element. Until this time I didn't know which car it came from, but after a bit of time on the internet I found a picture of a 1939 Ford truck and used it to make the first in a series of works I called "Vehicles". I ended up doing 13 canvasses, had several shows and sold a couple.

Here's "Ford" (Note the chrome emblem on the side), and a link to the series:

"Ford" 

"Vehicles"

This month we took a trip to Washington state to the town of Rosslyn, where the TV series "Northern Exposure" was filmed. It's an old coal mining town and we drove around looking at the little cottages of the miners from the early 1900's that had been preserved. As we turned a corner I saw this old truck parked in front of one of them and immediately recognized the distinctive front grill of the truck from my painting. We stopped and took a couple of pictures.




As we left I noticed that the emblem on the left side of the truck was missing.

It struck me that it was possible that the emblem that I had all those years could have been the one missing from this truck. If true, what are the chances that I would come across this truck so many years later? If someone believes in fate this would be a "sign" that it was "meant to be", that I was directed to this exact spot to have this experience, perhaps to affirm my faith in divine guidance.

But for me this encounter was a delightful happenstance that revealed to me the amazing power of utter randomness. To my thinking the odds of finding this old truck were literally astronomical. Over a lifetime I had journeyed from West to East and back again, had chanced on a little piece of history and incorporated it in a work of art, wandered into a little town I had never heard of and onto a street I could have just as easily passed without ever knowing the connection that waited for me there.

This is how we came to be. Science is leading us through the Universe to learn how its infinite energy is constantly creating events that lead to stars and planets, light and life, you, me and a '39 Ford in a mountain town with a story we never could have imagined.

Feeling' Lucky?

Astronomers estimate 100 Billion planets where life may exist. This number is just a guess, there may be more, as we have yet to explore the entire universe. This apparent abundance makes one wonder, as intelligent life may exist on many of them, why we should believe that our Earth is anything special or different. 

A being looking out at us from one of those planets would see the Earth as just another rock in space. Religion would have us believe, on faith, that the Earth (flat or not) is unique, yet even the possibility of life on other planets would test that belief in several fundamental ways.

A Creator ("C") would have to be given the responsibility to make all those other planets, and we also know C also has made the Universe an unpredictable place. Stars explode, asteroids strike planets, so that any given planet exists faces the possibility of destruction at any moment from some external cosmic force.

The number of possible planets suggests that life, in some form or other, is plentiful in the Universe, unremarkable, just another manifestation of matter, and completely capable of existence without any special effort from C. Life can take a myriad of paths as it spreads across a planet from the primordial spark, and while life is resilient and adaptable there exists an equal number of hazards that can extinguish it.

Some believe C has given man free will, but C is also allowing for the the possibility that on any given planet he will self-destruct, despite biblical exhortations for responsible behavior. This looks like C is hedging his bets on mankind. Even if C has a particular fondness for us it would seem our survival is arbitrary in the grand scheme. C may regret the loss of one planet, but there are plenty more so no worries.

Others hold that man has no free will and C does whatever C wants for he/she/its own reasons and therefore nothing can be done: man is helpless. Another belief is that all science is simply revealing C and leading to some grand reconciliation in the future. These are both positions that that evade a basic responsibility of intelligence which is to learn about our world and our place in it. Religion considers this a closed question, and is threatened by knowledge that challenges it.

Religion bets that The Creator cherishes mankind exclusively and that the Universe was created so man could thrive and prosper, though increasingly the evidence points to indifference at best. More likely the Universe is on its way to its own unknowable, unimaginable fate and we, life, are just along for the ride. Sure, some tinkering with dogma could include other planets, even perhaps other men, in the arms of God,  but they are out there, and we are here.

When (not if) life is found outside of our planet it will present an existential challenge to our belief systems by suggesting that we, humans are likely not unique, and will not necessarily be exempted from the forces that govern the wider Universe.

Our survival on this particular planet is up to us, save divine intervention.

At 100 Billion to 1 I'm not thrilled with the odds.

Law of the Jungle

The Law of the Jungle. 

Though mankind emerged from the animal state 10,000 years ago, this phrase has persisted as a description of the human condition, with now a political connotation. It is interesting to note that despite advances in knowledge and technology, primitive tribes exist that have only slight contact with civilization and still live in the natural state.

Once, while visiting a zoo, I paused in front of the tiger exhibit. He was pacing along the edge of the enclosure, and suddenly stopped and looked over the fence at me. For a moment our eyes met, and I felt a chill run through me, primordial and instantly terrifying because in that instant I knew what primitive man must have felt looking into implacable indifferent death. It's something I've never forgotten. Those eyes have seen thousand millenniums of nature holding dominion over all, with man only very recently having any right to challenge her.

Nature does not have a conscience or mercy. Capricious and cruel, The Law of the Jungle honors the hierarchy of predator and prey, with survival of the fittest the prevailing concept. The Oxford English Dictionary says it succinctly, defining it as: "the code of survival in jungle life, now usually with reference to the superiority of brute force or self-interest in the struggle for survival." (my italics) 

Regressive political theory, also known as conservatism, embraces this as a core concept, postulating that the individual is given the right to act in his own self-interest regardless of the consequences for the rest of society. Regressives interpret the Constitution to support these rights, with a core principle contending that  all that you may create is the result of your effort alone. This idea of "individualism" has served to hold back civilization from the beginning and is derived from another Law of the Jungle concept: "every man for himself", or more brutally, "eat or be eaten". 

Regressive politicians pander to those who believe, through their own narcissistic self regard, their wealth and property was acquired by their own effort with little credit given to the larger society for providing an environment for them to prosper in. While there was some truth to this notion some centuries ago, when men did wrest their living from the wilderness, it has little relevance in modern times, where every individual is caught in the web of an almost inconceivably complex system. 

A key element of civilization is peaceful cooperation between competing groups and individuals. Violence, whether actual or implied, has been banished from the ideal of a civilized society, but Regressives, by embracing the Law of the Jungle as a defining principle, threaten this core value. 
Anyone with wealth wants to keep it, and those with great wealth, whether earned or not, will use that  wealth to insure that government will not impede their efforts to amass the greater fortune.

Regressives believe that those who don't "carry their weight"  or "contribute" do not deserve any of the benefits of society, with only the principle of law and order, against which they strain, keeping them from violence against those they feel threaten their wealth or perceived security. It's sometimes referred to as the "code of the West", referring to a time in America when policing on the frontier was scarce. This fundamentally barbaric attitude keeps them from seeing themselves as part of a greater society progressing to an egalitarian future. One might think that the religious aspects of Regressive-ism would move them to accept the reality that their individualism is a function of their participation in the larger community, but Regressive Christianity is insular, as are all religions, exacerbating the issue.

Criminal behavior is Regressive, and raises the issue of the relationship between mental illness and Regressive behavior and beliefs, a topic that will be addressed in another post.

Regressives take power, Progressives give power with the former using violence and coercion and the latter using persuasion and superior reasoning.

Both Progressive and Regressive themes occur in modern culture. For instance, sports, especially those that involve physical aggression, are Regressive. Art and Science are by their nature Progressive in that they are forward looking and encourage people to better understand the world they inhabit, but even here a destructive impetus can be found, particularly when science is used to wage war, the ultimate Regressive pursuit.

Mankind has struggled for centuries to escape the Jungle. Along the way the Earth has helped him by providing resources that, with his emerging intelligence, has enabled him to all but conquer the dangers stalking in the shadows. We have now come to a time where the greater danger lurks in the vestiges of his primitive mind. Progress is inevitable, humanity will advance, and perhaps in a hundred or a thousand years it will look back on the Twenty-first Century as a turning point in a five thousand year transition from the Jungle to Civilization. Until then the tiger will be watching.